About the author

The author of more than seventy books, Brian Garfield (b. 1939) is one of the country's most prolific writers of thrillers, westerns, and other genre fiction. Raised in Arizona, Garfield found success at an early age, publishing his first novel when he was only eighteen. After time in the army, a few years touring with a jazz band, and earning an MA from the University of Arizona, he settled into writing fulltime.

Garfield is a past president of the Mystery Writers of America and the Western Writers of America, and the only author to have held both offices. Nineteen of his novels have been made into films, including Death Wish (1972), The Last Hard Men (1976) and Hopscotch (1975), for which he wrote the screenplay. To date, his novels have sold over twenty million copies worldwide. He and his wife live in California.

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A United States Air Force bomber threatens to obliterate New York.

The whole city sees the plane circling: an ancient B-17 bomber flying inches above the tops of Manhattan's skyscrapers. As it nears Midtown, its bomb-bay doors creak open, giving the citizens a terrifying view of its five-hundred-pound bombs. No one knows why it's there. As city officials attempt to identify it, the B-17's pilot issues his demands. He wants five million dollars in unmarked bills, or Manhattan will burn.

Reasoning with the strangely calm pilot is impossible. To attack the plane is madness, for the pilot would have time to release his payload before going down. They have to get him out of the sky -- but how?

Told in retrospect, through the documents and interviews of an official commission of inquiry, Target Manhattan is a chilling story of what can happen when America's military might turns against itself.